Tulare County Biographies
HON. E. DEWITT
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
The busy, useful and patriotic citizen of Tulare county whose patriotic
interests and unusual executive ability have won him much commendation
throughout the county, is E. DeWitt, who was born in Kentucky, February 5, 1844.
His family left that state when he was a mere boy, and coming to California in
1859, his father located with his household at Red Bluff, whence removal was
later made to Colusa county. There young DeWitt lived until 1872, when he was
about twenty-eight years old, and from that time until in 1877 he was in the
dairy business in Nevada. Then, coming to Tulare county, he located on
government land near Deer creek, where he lived two years. In 1879 he settled on
eighty acres just east of Tulare on which he lived until 1893, when he moved
into the city and made his home until in 1908, farming meanwhile near that town.
In the year last mentioned he moved to his present location, two miles and a
half southwest of Tulare, which consists of three hundred and sixty acres of
land which he had bought in 1903. He has since sold all but one hundred and
twenty acres of this land and now has eighty acres in alfalfa, the balance in
grazing land.
Politics from the point of view of the Democrat has commanded Mr. DeWitt's
attention since he was a young man. He has served many years as a member of the
Democratic County Central committee and was elected to represent his district in
the state legislature at the session of 1885 and the extra session of 1886. He
is a member of the board of directors of the Tulare Irrigation district, and as
such has served ably for eight years, and he superintended the building of the
Kaweah canal and in a general way has been influential in the work of canal and
ditch construction.
In 1870 Mr. DeWitt married Margaret Ford, of Yolo county, and they have children
as follows : Marcus of Porterville ; Mrs. Edmondson of Tulare; Mrs. Frank
Ellsworth of Tulare; Mrs. Joseph Sherman of Visalia ; Mrs. Gertrude Evans of San
Francisco, and H. C. DeWitt.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches -
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, pp. 665-666